Editorial [CounterText, 6(3)]

Abstract

This number of CounterText confirms a trend that consolidated itself across the journal’s sixth volume, which it closes. In both No. 6: 1, which was the fifth anniversary issue, and No. 6: 2, which carried a novella by John Kinsella – and now here, in this number – increasingly more space has been given to work that for different reasons might be considered to stretch genre. The proprieties of critical discourse or the amenabilities to journalology bearing upon literary studies are not, it is hoped, thereby disrespected or displaced, but it has seemed important to us to front and frame scholarly work that explores different forms and styles for academic rigour. Concurrently, the journal has tried to carry creative work that is itself resistant to the categorisations familiar fromliterary experimentation’s repertoires. There is nothing attitudinising, or even ‘new’, in this. That would be too tiresome: after all, stretching genre is one of literature’s (and criticism’s) oldest games. But it is interesting to see aspects of – attempts upon – the game’s evolution in a context where countertextuality and the post-literary are prevailing terms. Interesting, too, to observe what can occur in a forum set aside for what might, or might not, fall under those designations.